


Due To The Dead

by idrilhadhafang



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Ben Solo Lives, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Minor Finn/Rey (Star Wars), Minor Poe Dameron/Ben Solo, Palpatine Family Feels, Past Character Death, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Skywalker Family Feels (Star Wars), wow I never thought I’d make that a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:07:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28723338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: Rey visits her parents’ grave on Jakku.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3
Collections: Allbingo, Bad Day Collection





	Due To The Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Hey It's That Guy: Minor Characters
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.
> 
> Author’s Notes: Consider this a companion piece to “Till Death Do Us Part”, here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28697733

“Hey.”  
  
Rey crouched down near the grave. The pauper’s grave in the Jakku desert. Behind her, she could sense Ben wincing in shame that he had ever used her parents as a weapon against her. Better late than never, she thought.   
  
“It’s me, Rey,” Rey said. “I’m your daughter. I came back. Didn’t think that I’d come back here. Technically, there’s nothing keeping me here. I denied enough of it. But...” She swallowed. "You weren’t weak. Whatever Palpatine said, he was wrong. He didn’t know what strength meant. You...you stood up to him. When it really mattered. Everything you went through...”  
  
Her voice cracked. She hated thinking what they must have gone through in their last moments. Her mother, dying away from her own family, at the mercy of a monster. Her father, tortured on the orders of someone who should have raised him and loved him.  
  
If Palpatine was even capable of that.   
  
"I’m sorry,” she said, the tears starting to fall, to land on the sandy pauper’s grave. Not enough to water it, but enough to leave an impression. “Stars...I never wanted you to die for me. I never wanted anyone to die for me. You weren’t weak. You didn’t always make the right decisions; sending me to Plutt was one of them. But you weren’t weak.”  
  
No answer.  
  
“I beat him,” Rey said. “You’re avenged. Everyone he hurt is avenged. And you can sleep now. I met a man.” Rey smiled through her tears. “Finn. We’re dating; it took a while for us to sort out our nonsense, but we’re here.”  
  
Finn’s hand gently squeezed her shoulder.  
  
“And I have a cousin that got resurrected,” Rey said. “Ben. Your great-nephew. He’s a good man." She bit her lip. “I wish you’d been there just to see that I found the biggest family in the galaxy. I wish you could be there to see it. The best that I can do is at least keep living. Living, as you wanted me to.” She sighed. “I love you. Both of you.” She turned to her friends, to Finn. “I love all of you too,” she said. “You mean the galaxy to me.”  
  
She had nearly turned to the Dark Side out of love for them, and though she wouldn’t turn, they still meant the galaxy to her.   
  
“You said it,” Poe said softly, squeezing Ben’s hand. “I don’t think you ever did before.”  
  
Rey sighed. “I guess you’re right on that part, Poe.”  
  
She was grateful, at least, that Poe had offered a degree of lightness at her parents’ grave.   
  
“They were heroes,” Poe said. “They gave you a fighting chance to live — to save the galaxy. That’s something, at least."  
  
Ben spoke. "I didn’t realize how brave they were,” he said. “I’m sorry...Aunt Nerys, Uncle Trias, I’m sorry I ever suggested you threw my cousin away like garbage."  
  
Rose smiled at her as well. “They gave me a friend. They gave everyone else a friend too.”  
  
Finn nodded. “They gave me the woman I love. That counts for something.”  
  
Rey was about to stand. Before she did, though, she etched an inscription in the sand with a stick.   
  
TRIAS AND NERYS  
PARENTS, SURVIVORS, HEROES  
THEY ARE NOT NOBODY; THEY ARE SOMEBODY  
  
She stood up in that moment. "I wish I could speak to them,” she said. “Again.”  
  
“Ben said once my mother had become Force energy,” Poe said. “That might have been what happened to your parents. Even if you can’t see them, they’re looking after you."  
  
Rey thought of her father. Her father, who occasionally dropped Sith vocabulary into his speech, who was as good to her as Palpatine’s clone-son could be. Her mother, vibrant and funny and alive.   
  
They would be there, even if she couldn’t see them.   
  
“Yeah,” Rey said. “They will.”


End file.
